Good Omens - You and I

Rose

Aziraphale opened the door of the bookshop and welcomed the two humans with an immense smile, he was really glad that they were safe. After all, going to hell with someone makes a connection. The demon rose lazily from the ground, muttering to his wounded ego, fell heavily on the couch and returned sober to face the conversation that was about to begin. After a detailed account by the two of the attack and how they had rejected the demons, they all began to look for new clues among the dusty books that continued to accumulate in piles ordered around them. Newt read without understanding, and puffed almost in sync with the demon while Aziraphale and Anatema read abducted without stopping exchanging views on the various books, but without finding anything significant. The books continued to accumulate hour after hour, until the sun went down for a while and their hopes began to go up in smoke. The only ones left to sift through were two small diaries that seemed to be the least valuable pieces in the entire occult collection. The angel took them with the same care with which he treated others, he handed one to the witch with a disconsolate air, they were simple diaries of a young witch who told her love story. There were no formulas or spells just so many tears that had soaked and faded the pages long before.

When Anatema turned around she saw that Newt had collapsed and slept, making some strange sounds every now and then. Crowley followed him into the dream world shortly after, with a magic cookbook covering his face. She sighed and with resignation began slowly to read accompanied by the sound of the pages that the angel turned next to her. It was only after a few chapters that he began to see the words tremble, he heard a voice that began to emerge from some secret and hidden place. It was a woman's voice and very sad. He talked relentlessly, in a suffering tone, about those who were marked by a tragic end. Before Anathema could warn those around her, the spell enveloped her and took her mind back hundreds of years.

Aziraphale turned with her usual friendly smile to Anatema and froze instantly. "Crowley" said with a firm voice, that was all that was needed, the demon woke up instantly and sat down without making a single sound. Now even her eyes were fixed on the witch. The words were crawling out of the book and moved onto his skin while his eyes were completely black. The two celestials approached her and knelt down, "This girl is always looking for attention" hissed the demon with a half smile. "Come on!" the angel just said in response. They placed both fingertips on the girl's forehead and suddenly they were with her.

They found her hand in hand with another witch, the one who originally owned the diaries. A spell made it so that the real story was revealed only to witches and as soon as Anatema Device had touched the writing, it was activated. The witch who stood before them took Anatema and led her down the story. Aziraphale and Crowley could only follow what was happening from afar, a wrong move and they could destroy their friend's mind.

"My name is Rose. I knew that one day someone would look for the mirror I created, but I can't let you take it, or at least I'll try to convince you not to. See?" the witch asked Anatema. It took the girl a while to figure out what she was observing. The scene opened on a clearing whose border was formed by tall trees, in the middle a man and a woman were hugging each other. She was holding a mirror in her chest. When the two broke up, she said something and they started fighting. The cry that came out of the witch's lips was accompanied by the wind that began to blow through the branches of the surrounding trees.

"Power can make man the cruellest of creation. When I realized that what we had created was too powerful for this world, I tried to convince my beloved to destroy it... together. He didn't want to, he wanted power. I had chosen too late." whispered Rose.

The man tried to take the object from her hands while she screamed desperately, the clearing trembled and groaned suddenly shaken by the strong wind that had risen. The man had the mirror in his hands, a crazy look had invaded his eyes. The witch stretched out her hand and began to pronounce a formula in an ancient language and a first crack opened on the glass surface, at the same time the sound of the shot made everyone jerk. The little gun the man was holding had only fired one shot. That was enough. He hit the jackpot. The woman fell to the ground without a lament, while the mirror began to destroy itself and to give off an ever more intense light. The scream that came out of the lips of the man was something primordial, shaking in the depths all present. He threw the mirror to the ground and took his beloved into his arms crying desperately. It was an instant, a glow reminiscent of a firework, the mirror exploded and I don't leave any neat, if not the void. Anathema clung to the woman's arm, the only thing that kept her still when the shock wave overwhelmed her. The angel and the demon took out their wings and shielded themselves.

All that was left of the clearing were ashes and three fragments of a mirror. "I have shown you the power of the mirror and the madness that this brings with it, if you really want to know that it will not bring anything good. The mirror feeds on two things: love or hate and unfortunately this world abounds with both. When I made the mirror I just wanted to be happy but I created something scary. Are you willing to risk destroying everything you have? If I tell you where the fragments are, you won't have to let ordinary men touch them, and I hope you'll never try to take them." In the woman's voice there was a perennial despair, a resignation that tore the heart apart at every word uttered.

Anathema was sinking his tapered fingers between the woman's clothes and shaking was barely holding his feet. She felt emptied, she could hear everything Rose had felt here, she had felt her soul dissipate at the moment of her death. Aziraphale cried in silence not far away. An angel always senses when a life goes out. He had walked the earth for centuries and had seen men born and die for hundreds of years, but even now his heart felt the blow. Next to him, Crowley clenched his jaw and took on his demon aura. He was brought to feel hatred and sadness and that place was soaked in it, his only desire was to get out of there as far away as possible.

The show was not yet over because the centre of the smoking crater flickered and opened, letting a small demon with silvery hair and feline features pass by, looking around and staring at a precise point in the sky. Shortly afterwards, a ground of wings moving in the air came to all those present. An angel came down slowly and stood in front of him. Something the way they looked at each other suggested mixed affection and resentment. They looked around lazily spotted a fragment each and with a tediously slow pace they took them. The cat demon weighed him up and threw him in the air a couple of times. He gave a quiet smile, a little nod to the angel and they both disappeared the way they had arrived. Aziraphale's heart was beating like crazy, he knew exactly who the angel was. He was someone who had even more power than Gabriel. Instinctively retracted, Amenadiel one of God's direct subordinates.

He had completely ignored everything else too focused on watching the other angel had stopped listening to the witches talking and now he heard Crowley pull him to himself. Both were pushed out of Anatema's mind. The detachment was painful for all three, they stayed to catch their breath on the floor while the silence enveloped everything.

"Well, I'd say we're in the shit!" said Crowley as he stood up with caution, "God's right arm took the fragment to heaven. We'll never catch him and I'm not even sure I want to do it because of what the chalk girl said" she added in an increasingly weak tone. "Why?" asked the angel who had to admit she hadn't listened to the last part of the conversation. This sparked a quarrel between the two that was silenced by the words of Anathema that sounded like one of the most terrible sentences in history "One of us will have to sacrifice himself to take the mirror." The glances were quick between the two couples and again the silence became a cumbersome presence. Aziraphale stood up in turn "We can't give up, we'll find a way I'm sure! Come on. We have stopped the apocalypse we can also do this" now his blue eyes nailed the demon where he was and the poor man inside himself admitted once again that for that angel would go anywhere, even in Paradise.

Newt had woken up when they came back and looked at them lost in the limbo of the awakening in which he had ended up. He didn't say anything, he just sat on the floor with his girlfriend and held her to his chest, or rather his heart. He held her tight while she left himself to some sad hiccups. Anatema Device cried like when she was a child for a witch who died hundreds of years before, she cried because she had felt the love that this woman felt and then she had felt the pain. She would have been chained to those books forever without being able to change or die altogether. No, the girl would have found a way to free that soul and now more than before she was convinced that that mirror had to be found, she would not have allowed it to reap more hearts.